Day 29 - Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs

Geyser at Yellowstone NP
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Ok, I am in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Wyoming. Well, technically I am in a town. One that has a population of 962 – woo, massive! My motel (which is the only lodging in this place) is next door to a taxidermist. There are no proper roads here apart from the main one that goes through this place (which takes about 30 seconds to drive through), just lots of dirt tracks. I have no phone signal and no internet either. Blissful isolation? There is also a forest fire which I think is quite a long way away but the smoke from the fire has covered all of this town and the surrounding countryside and has enforced a strange sort of twilight which is a bit eerie. This morning I said goodbye to Darlene and Roy and made my way back to Yellowstone again. This time I went to see the Geysers which are dotted around the south-eastern portion of the park. Again, there were lots of hot springs everywhere but with the geysers lots of steam and bubbling mud pools too. The steam makes a really loud noise as it rises up which was quite amazing, although it still smelt really nasty which was slightly unfortunate! I saw lots of wildlife again on my journey through the park – lots of deer again, as well as some coyotes too which looked really cute as they ran alongside the rivers. I arrived at the Old Faithful site around lunchtime and spent ages looking for a parking space, as it is the place everyone who goes to Yellowstone visits and this park is also a lot busier than any of the other national parks I have visited. I wandered up to the geyser itself where hundreds of people had gathered around. Apparently Old Faithful erupts every 90 minutes or so, so some of these people had been waiting there over an hour to see it. I however, managed to time this impeccably and only had to wait about 2 minutes before it erupted. It was quite cool as the water and steam did rise quite high, but it was not worth waiting around for over an hour for, and I’m not quite sure why it’s so famous as I think I have seen far more spectacular things on my trip so far. Nevertheless, it was nice to see. After it had erupted (which lasts about 2 minutes) there was a mass exodus from the site so I decided to eat my packed lunch then and was joined by a couple of chipmunks which were quite cute! When I did leave the area I was greeted by the sight of a bison wandering across the road right in front of me as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I managed to get a couple of shots of him but didn’t hang around too long as a bison is quite large and also has horns and I had the top down on Thelma! I headed south out of Yellowstone and into Grand Teton NP which was almost deserted although it is only about 10 miles from Yellowstone. This park was really pretty and is framed by huge mountains which rise about 12,000 ft above a lake. I saw a moose grazing by a river which was exciting, although I didn’t manage to get any pictures of it which is a bit of a shame. Although it is really warm here the lady in the visitors centre said that they expect their first lot of snow within 30 days – crazy stuff! I then headed east to Dubois which is where I am now. Tomorrow it’s on to the home of the Mormons and Salt Lake City. Could be interesting…

Old Faithful
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Distance travelled today – 169 miles.

Distance travelled today - 169 miles

Bearwatch – survived Yellowstone without seeing any bears, but lots of other wildlife instead.